


Loss Ficlet: October 20, 2018

by missclairebelle



Series: Loss (In Chronological Order) [31]
Category: Outlander & Related Fandoms, Outlander (TV), Outlander Series - Diana Gabaldon
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Birthday Sex, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-21
Updated: 2018-12-21
Packaged: 2019-09-24 02:41:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,194
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17092526
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/missclairebelle/pseuds/missclairebelle
Summary: A two-part birthday celebration for Claire. :)





	1. Part One

##  **October 20, 2018, Part One  
****Loss (Modern AU)**

It was well into the morning, closer to sunrise than sunset, when I made it home from work. Sweeping a hand through my seemingly bottomless work bag, I cursed again and again as I proved myself incapable of locating my keys. ( _Over and over, I pulled out my work keys, a tampon, a bottle of eye drops, a pen, and my mobile._ )

Jamie was surely asleep and I was determined not to wake him to get into the house.  With a cackling laugh to no one other than myself, I briefly entertained the notion of sleeping on the front doorstep. At least there, Jamie would have to hop over my slumbering body when he took the dog for his morning run.

Fact was, I should have called him.  The lines of the house were blurring together and booze sloshed about in my otherwise empty stomach. In short, every one of my reflexes was so absolutely  _saturated_  with alcohol that the mere fact that I had managed to make my way to the front door was a miracle.

After a battle for entry that stretched over a series of blurry minutes, I scaled the back fence. With a few more minutes of effort, I managed to make my way inside through the garden door with a spare key that I had hidden a few weeks earlier. ( _The one that I had concealed under a pot of mums without telling him, knowing it would send his protective streak into a nearly inconsolable overdrive._ )

Beginning late that afternoon, four surgical specialties had coordinated with a single mission:  _save a life_.  Working in tandem, we accomplished just that roughly ten hours later. And the feeling ( _adrenaline mixing with exhaustion_ )had been incendiary and almost supernatural in my veins.  My current state was owing to our half-baked idea of hosting an impromptu party in the doctors’ lounge. With the aid of the Chief of Urology’s “clandestine” liquor cabinet, we had all staggered out of the hospital’s service entrance into Ubers.

Once inside the house, I heaved a sigh of relief as I dropped the spare key, my coat, and bag onto the floor. Marching with unintentionally heavy feet, I made my way upstairs and opened the master bedroom door.  Jamie was on his back in the center of the bed, covers kicked to the end of the bed and pillow shoved between the mattress and the headboard. His lips were parted and a slim line of drool glistened at the corner of his mouth.

“My lad the starfish,” I slurred, biting down on my lower lip and propping myself up against the doorframe. At the sound, Buffalo Bill stirred with a huffing, judgmental sound. He offered no greeting, only half-conscious glare before he curled closer to his master. Whispering “ _goodnight_ ,” I basked in the image of the two of them for a moment longer before shutting the door as quietly as possible

Sights set on warding off the promise of an oncoming hangover, I wandered down to the kitchen.  I had transformed from a mere drunken mess into a drunken mess who decided to cook.

“ _Eggs_ ,” I declared blankly after a long study of our almost-bare refrigerator. I managed to crack eggs into a bowl with a healthy dose of shell from my clumsy thumbs and half-heartedly whip them into something resembling what I expected scrambled eggs probably should look like.

 

Jamie apparently woke to the sounds of my banging about the kitchen and came lumbering in with his chest and feet bare. Everything was only halfway with him. Half awake.  Pajama pants limply hanging halfway off of his narrow hips.  Half-open eyes.  Half-smirk.

“ _Fuck._ You look good,” I sighed blankly, taken away from my task.

 “Well hello to you too,” he chuckled, raking a hand through his hair and leaning forward to give me a kiss on the cheek. “How much have ye had to drink tonight?

“I  _feel_  it,” I conceded, giving him my sauciest look and turning to look into the pan of still-shiny scrambled eggs.

“Let me help ye. I dinna trust ye near open flame.”

Turning, I testily responded holding my spatula up and giving him my best approximation of a glare. “Listen,” I started.  “I am an  _independent woman_  and require  _no man_  to make my own dinner.”

“Okay, okay.”

“And I am a  _S-U-R-G-E-O-N_.” I punctuated each letter with sharp jabs of a spatula in his general direction for emphasis.

“Of course ye are,” he chuckled, raking a tired hand over his face and perching himself on the counter. “Ye’re a braw surgeon at that.”

“I am,” I declared triumphantly, setting the spatula on the counter. “I  _am_ a braw surgeon. How many other wives have you had,  _James Fraser_ , that could surgically repair an acetabular fracture?”

“Claire,” he said evenly, eyes sparkling in a way that I would not realize until later was teasing. “Ye’re my first wife. Ye’ll be my only wife. And I dinna ken what an  _acetab––_ ”

“––acetabular, you pronoun––”

“Okay. I dinna ken what  _that_  is.”

Flicking an errant curl off of my forehead, I opened the refrigerator and started to pull out cheese and chives. My mouth was watering at the prototype of an omelet building itself in my head. It was something that I knew better than to attempt sober, but had the misplaced drunken pride to give it a shot. “Fixing a fracture in front of the pelvis. The acetabulum,  _Jamie––_ ”

Interrupting me and shaking his head, he said, “Quit saying my name like that.” 

“Like  _what_?” I asked, feeling my brows furrow of their own accord.

“Like ye’re my  _schoolteacher._ ”

 “Hmph.   _Whatever_.”  My train of thought derailed, I turned back to explore the far reaches of our meager stock of groceries. “We need to do better grocery shopping this weekend. Take me out for a Sunday date, Mr. Fraser?” 

“Aye. It’s a date,” he confirmed. He indulged me, agreeing as if it were not our usual, unspoken practice to spend Sunday mornings getting coffee, doing the crossword with locked ankles, and then wandering for at least a few days’ worth of ingredients for meals to make at home ( _usually by him_ ).

After a few too many minutes standing in front of our open refrigerator, Jamie cleared his throat. Turning, a bottle of salad dressing in my hands, I gave him a look and a sharp, “ _Wot_?”

“Yer omelet is properly fucked, ye braw surgeon you.”

“ _Bloody hell_ ,” I groaned, looking at him with wide eyes, hands dangling uselessly at my sides. Sniffing, I could tell that my omelet was, as he said, well and truly fucked.

“What are ye planning for that balsamic vinaigrette?”

 I looked down at the bottle in my hands and knew he was teasing me. His eyes were alight and his mouth was curved into something that could only be referred to as  _shit-eating grin_.

Unable to think of a justification for having the salad dressing out, I tossed it back into the refrigerator ( _muttering “nothing” under my breath_ )and took the eggs back out. Holding the carton out with the barest hint of a smile, I marshaled my sweetest, most conciliatory look. “ _Help_?” 

Obviously exasperated, he rolled his eyes as he slid off of the counter. “I’ll help ye, despite the fact that ye cared  _nothin’_  for my help a few minutes ago.”

“You  _poor_ ,  _poor_  put upon man.” 

“At least ye acknowledge it.” The way he pinched my bottom made me squeal and slap at him half-heartedly before I took over his post on the countertop.

After the sizzling grey-brown mess of my omelet was dispatched straight to hell where it belonged ( _the sink_ ), Jamie wordlessly took over for me. I watched him move expertly ( _albeit sleepily_ ) through the kitchen, bare feet padded across the flooring we had installed the weekend before. I felt a tremendous wave build in me at the thought of the roots we had put down in only a few short months. 

“I’m feeling a little sentimental right now,” I sighed unprompted, crossing my legs and cradling my chin in my hand.

He looked over his shoulder and smiled. “Oh aye? About what?” 

I knew good and god damned well what.

_Hopelessly, irrevocably in love. Home. Married._

But I just shrugged, returning his smile.

Cracking perfectly speckled eggs and slicing fragrant chives, earthy mushrooms, and nutty gruyère cheese, Jamie hummed quietly to himself.

Sitting there, watching, I let my mind wander. Never in my wildest dreams had I ever imagined that I would have something like  _this._ A sense of completeness. A man so in love with me that he would wake in the early morning hours and make me eggs.  A house with a dog where the fingerprints of our love were burnished into every surface.

“Ye’ve gone awfully quiet, my drunken, braw surgeon.”

“Hmmmm?” I had been lulled into a quiet inspection of his body –– the way his bones moved beneath his skin, the lines of muscle that made him at the same time hulking and graceful.

He tossed a glance over his shoulder. “What are ye thinkin’ back there? Still sentimental?” 

As primly as possible, I crossed my legs and tossed my head back before chirping, “ _Wouldn’t you like to know_.”

“I wouldna ask if I didna want to know.”  His wrist turned the pan and a fluffy, almost-white yellow pile of folded eggs and cheese slipped easily onto the pan.

“I have never understood how you do this.”

“Lots and lots of butter. Things that yer wee doctor’s heart willna countenance in her cooking, but will eat when presented to her wi’out her knowledge.” Held up the plate and let me take it with a small tip of the head. “ _Madame Fraser_.”

Returning his nod, I accepted the plate, inhaling deeply and feeling suddenly hungrier than I’d realized. I hooked my legs around his middle as he turned away, ostensibly to deal with the mess he had created. 

“It’s my birthday, you know.” 

“Oh, is it?” he asked blandly, looking down at his watch-free wrist out of habit. He tried to back away a bit but I tightened my legs, setting the plate down so I could add my arms to the effort to keep him there.

“Don’t,” I whined quietly. “I’m  _needy_. For my  _birthday_.”

“Ye’re  _drunk_ ,” he said a tone of mock accusation in his voice. “ _Stinkin’_   _drunk_  on yer  _birthday_.”

“Ah, so it would appear.”  Blinking and slipping my hands around to his front, I let my fingers travel the shallow groove along the side of his abdomen. I traced the slight indentation back up, just barely mumbling, “Iliac furrows.”

“Excuse me?” he asked, tucking my hair behind both ears and tilting his head. 

“This…” I indicated with my head, my fingers taking one more path down until they met the waistband of his pajama pants. “Iliac furrows. It’s not like an official medical term, but it’s a far better name for this part of your anatomy than ‘ _that sexy V thing_.’”

A single, quizzical red brow rose. I patted him just above the hips, making a smacking sound with my lips.

“Colloquially, it’s called an Adonis belt or Apollo’s belt.” He looked down at his bare stomach, a look of confusion still contorting his tired face. I pressed my palm over the curves arcing from his sides down into his pajama pants. “ _This part_  of your belly that you work  _so_  hard on.”

“I work out  _sae hard_ , and yet ye call it a  _belly_.” Leaning forward, he rested his nose just below my ear, inhaling. “I’m  _offended_.” 

“Hmmm. Do you prefer ‘ _tummy_ ’?”

Grunting, he changed tack. “I’d  _prefer_  it if my  _verra intoxicated_ wife would eat her omelet.” His lips grazed against my jawline and I curled one hand around the back of his neck. “I’d  _also_ prefer that my wife sober up. That way I, in good conscience and wi’out concern for her ability to consent, can give her a birthday rogering. The likes of which she’s never kent.”  

Under his almost delicate kiss I inhaled.

 Attempting the most coquettish look I could muster, I sighed, “Consent turns me on.” 

“Aye, me too, Sassenach.”

Exhaling heavily, he took half of a step backwards, looking me up and down. I allowed my legs to fall from him and watched as he cut a corner of the omelet off, spearing it with the fork. When he brought it up to my mouth I fought the urge to bat his hand away and kiss him again. 

“Eat up,” he said in a way that told me there was little use in fighting the omelet I’d asked him to make. I accepted the bite and chewed, making exaggerated noises of contentment. ( _Truth be told, it earned every smacking, mmmmmmm’ing sound I made; it was a damn good omelet._ ) He brought a second bite to my mouth, teasing me for a moment before letting me capture the bite. “Ye tasted like a pinecone. Were ye drinking  _gin_?”

I nodded,  _happy_. Positively, deliriously so.

Later, clean from a no-frills shower and curled against him in bed, I drowsily drew his arms around my middle. “If I take a quick cat nap, can I still have my birthday rogering later on?” 

The laugh from him vibrated from the very center of him, shaking his chest against my back. “Aye, I’ll let ye have a raincheck.”

“Good. Because if it’s half of last year’s cupcake sex, I’ll be boneless for a week.”

 The last thing I heard before drifting off was his sultry, humid promise against my neck: “ _Ye can count on it_.”


	2. Part Two

##  **October 20, 2018, Part Two  
** **Loss (Modern AU)**

Heavy sleep has always been a rare treat for me.  

The kind of sleep where you wake with your body perfectly situated.  The flawless gymnastics of a form making choice after subconscious choice in slumber that resulted in weightlessness. To turn against the mattress like  _this_. To curl against the pillows like  _that_.  To situate the blanket under a cheek  _just so_.  

And that was precisely the state from which Jamie woke me.

If I had been able to force my body into action, I would have wrapped my fingers around his thick throat and killed him where he stood.

Through an archaeological excavation of layers upon layers of bedding, his hands unearthed my hips.  Gripping, turning, pulling just slightly. He hovered over the site of his dig and only the duvet and his clothes separated him from what he was searching for. “Are you ready to get up?” His hold on me was firm, but his tone contained no hint of a lascivious intent.  

 _He really did just want me to wake up_.

I groaned a little as I ran through a tally of my current state.

One.  My back felt as though it were on fire from standing through the surgery.  

Two.  The muscles of my fingers ( _small ones of which I took no heed most of the time_ ) were rioting from the delicate work of surgery.  They almost cramped at the thought of wrapping around so much as a glass of water.

Three.  The arches of my feet protested at the thought of bearing any weight.  

Four.  My head was the only notable ( _and surprising_ )exception from the list of things that ached. ( _No hangover. A victory_.)  And  _good lord_  was I ever tired.

With my face pressed into a thin line of tacky drool along my forearm, I grunted, “Leave me be, you bloody Scot.”

“I canna do that. It’s seven o’clock.” He paused, the grip on my hips lessening ever-so-slightly.  “ _At night_. The sun’s long gone. It’s only yer birthday for five more hours.”

At that, I gave my husband the most hateful one-eyed glare that I could muster and groaned a little. It was more an objection at the prospect of rising than expression of any actual discomfort. Jamie shifted just enough that his weight was no longer fully holding me down.

We went to battle over the covers.  

A quick grab, yanking them over my eyes.  

His face buried in my hairline.

Breath against my scalp.

“It’s yer birthday and there is a celebration and many presents to be had.”

Grumbling a series of four-letter words into my pillow, I squirmed until I was looking up at him. “Let me  _sleep_. That’s the only present I want or need.”

“Yer wish is  _no’_  my command. Ye’ve slept for eleven hours. It’s time to get up before ye grow roots into our bed and I must leave ye here to fossilize.”

_Our bed._

Sometimes his simple vocabulary choices made my heart flutter. (It was never  _the_ bed. It was  _ours_  –– the home for our scents and the shapes of our bodies gently indenting the mattress.  Bordered to one side by a Himalayan rock salt lamp and on the other by an oil diffuser.)

“I’d venture a guess to say that ye’ll quite like what I have planned.”

Skeptical, I raised an eyebrow, staring at the stray thread on the corner of my pillowcase. “Oh aye?”

“ _Aye_ ,” he confirmed, turning the corner of the duvet down just enough to expose my face. “Do I have yer lazy bones intrigued enough to get up?”

“ _Maybe_ ,” I conceded, fingers picking at the thread.  I was more than interested.  Any remaining façade of resistance then was just a flirtatious ruse.

“Have ye noticed a theme? I had to force ye awake so I could ask ye to marry me. Now I have to force ye out of bed so I can engage in some foreplay before yer birthday rogering.”

Without even the barest trace of humor, I grumbled, “Funny how that works.”

“Come outside in yer ugliest sweatshirt and those jeans that look like they’ll disintegrate in the wash.”

It almost took an act of parliament to get me to roll over, but I turned just enough to look up at him. He dragged a finger through the drool quickly drying on my chin.  A younger, pre-Jamie version of Claire would have warmed with a touch embarrassment.  The version of Claire that ached for her husband in almost every conceivable way found his touch endearing, though a bit gross.  A gentle brush of his lips along my cheekbone and I was officially sold, my hand weaving into the hair at his nape and holding his lips to my face.  I was ice cream and he was the bowl.  Everything about me melted against the warmth of him, puddling and molding to his shape.

“Make yerself look as truly unkempt as possible.”

This time, I couldn’t help but to smile. The sparkle in his eyes. The earnest set of his mouth. The small nick on the soft underside of his jaw ( _a byproduct of his habit to get a little too aggressive shaving when pressed for time_ ).  This man loved me in my grossest, tiredest, and profoundly bedraggled states. “That won’t be hard. The looking unkempt part.”

“Nah, willna be a challenge for ye at all, by the looks of it.”  I rose just enough to playfully smack his arm and he contorted his face in a put-upon grimace.

After a moment, pulling myself up onto my elbows, I asked, “Is there birthday cake involved?”

“There’s my gal,” he mumbled, kissing me on the corner of my mouth. “And good  _god_ , you can be sloppy as ye want to be, but ye need to brush those teeth.”

Twenty minutes later, I had followed his instructions to the letter. I was wearing my coziest sweatshirt and a pair of jeans that had seen better days. 

( _I had purchased the jeans during medical school when I had spilled a cappuccino on another pair in the middle of a study session across town from my flat. The denim had become soft over probably five dozen washes, almost to the point of disintegrating under my touch.  Early in our relationship, Jamie had declared them the best jeans for showing my arse to its full advantage. Once, in the middle unencumbering me of said jeans, he had joked that fate directed their purchase well before we met, just for him._ ) 

My mouth –– double brushed and rinsed with mouthwash –– still tingled with the flavor of peppermint as I made my way downstairs.

Out on the back patio, I was struck dumb and my feet refused to move. “When did you… did you…  _how_? I––” My voice trailed off as my eyes darted around the backyard, unable to focus.

“Ye were asleep the entire day, lass. Wasna hard.” ‘

I finally looked at him, feeling a flush tickle my flesh.  

 _The way he was watching me_.  Intent.   It was as though he knew that my capitulation to his request was inevitable.  Like waiting for a lunar eclipse or a meteor shower, knowing it was coming and just preparing for arrival. 

My heart slunk into my stomach and I reached out for him, drawing him close to my side by his waist. He slipped an arm around my shoulder.

From a single point on the side of the house, a dozen strings of warm Christmas lights glowed in a drooping canopy overhead. Crackling flames licked the sky from our small fire pit. On the ground, he had created a spread of various blankets and pillows.  In the center was the most impressive charcuterie board that I had ever seen –– bright vegetables, oily spreads, nuts still in their shells, crusty bread, musky black figs, chunks of cheese, and carefully folded meats. Two bottles of wine rested uncorked next to two paper cups.

And in the background there was music.

“Is that…  _Africa_  playing?” I asked, laughing through the swell of emotion growing in my throat.

“Och, aye,” he admitted, sounding a little abashed. “I made a playlist of songs from 1982 for ye to enjoy. The songs of yer birth year.”

With fistfuls of his sweater, I pulled him down to meet the needs of my significantly shorter stature. Our lips just centimeters apart, I muttered, “You are  _so_  getting laid tonight, James Fraser.”

“Like I didna already ken that.”

The firelight glinted off his eyes as he gave me a perfunctory kiss, fingers tangling in mine as he guided me to the ground. ‘ _Good god I love this man_ ,’ I thought, the feeling of him effervescent in my throat.

For what felt like ages, we fed each other perfect bites and kissed crumbs off one another’s lips. We talked and laughed, sipping dry red wine with fingers that strayed more and more as the night went along.  Our mouths became magnets as our cheeks became warmer from wine, the lowering hoods of eyelids opening realms of unidentifiable moments and infinite lists possibilities.  

A bold touch to my lower lip  _(wiping away crumbs)._

A bolder hand curving around his wrist, drawing his fingers to my breast  _(again, to wipe away crumbs)._

A boldest advance as my fingers found his waistband and drew him nearer _(in the end, no pretext whatsoever)._

Full and adequately saturated with wine, the space between us evaporated and I constructed a nest against his side the likes of which Buffalo Bill would have found impressive.  After rooting around in the blankets and spare duvets, I rested my head against his shoulder. Weaving my arms around his chest like a vine, I angled my body just enough to look up at the sky.

We echoed one another’s contented sighs like a reverberating call out into a cave –– together, low pitched, humming things. My fingers meandered along the familiar lines of his chest as I breathed certain meaningless observations.  ( _The tanginess of the blue cheese in his homemade charcuterie.  How the stars looked as though they were affixed to a gray velveteen sky as papier-mâché.  How it was unseasonably warm for October._ )

“It’s a  _perfect_  night,  _mo nighean_  birthday girl,” he responded to the last, hand working up and down the line of my spine.

Truthfully, I had not anticipated that we would do more than open a moderately-priced bottle of wine and fall into bed with one another.

The mere thought of his effort ( _this setting, the way that he had given the dog a scratch as he rekindled the fire, the almost child-like look of expectation in his eyes as I walked outside_ )made my toes curl into the blankets.  His efforts had gone so far beyond the pale.  _This_  was better than any huge party or extravagant gift. He had given me himself.

“How in the world did you manage to pull this off?”

His hand ( _touch broad and warm through my sweatshirt_ )stilled at the small of my back. “Ye were so knackered. It wasna that tough. I’d figured I’d have problems getting out here to set things up wi’out ye knowing, but ye were drunk as a piper last night.”

“Pipers are drunk?”

I could feel the pulsating promise of a laugh in his belly before he said, “Oh, aye.  It’s a  _well-known fact_  about pipers, Sassenach.”

A moment passed, and then another.  I closed my eyes to the sound of his heartbeat. God I loved how just being with him could make my world stand still.“If this is the honeymoon phase, let’s live in it forever.  Let’s not let anything fuck this up.”

He responded with a slurring  _hmmmm_  and slipped his fingers beneath the waistband of my jeans, curving them around the swell of my backside and giving me a slight squeeze.  Moving to straddle him, squaring my hips to hover just over his, was as natural as breathing.  I had an instinct for closeness, for  _more_.

“Thank you.”

“For squeezin’ yer ass?”  

I snorted.  “Yes, for squeezing my arse––”

“––yer fine, fat arse––” he interrupted, kneading me again as he raised his hips in a motion that could only be described as lewd.

“–– _and_ for all of this.”

When I heard him wet his lips, I rose up and pulled the duvet over my shoulders.  His responsive groan was an interruption in the cosmos.  The failing of gravity, the falling out of orbit, the loss of the sun’s warmth, the creation of a vacuum of sound.

“Allow me to shower you with gratitude?” I asked plainly.  The sharp crack of a log splitting in the fire made me jump a little and he pulled me down to his mouth.  He kissed with everything he had.  Mouth.  Tongue.  Teeth.  Hands.  Jaw.  Body.

The combined effect was a power failure.  Each of my senses became deliberate and clicked back online in succession.  

 _Sight from dark –– the heavy rise and fall of his chest beneath me, the glistening of his lips as he pulled back for a breath_.

“Ye’ll no’ shower me wi’ gratitude tonight. It’s yer birthday.  Tell me what ye want, Sassenach, and be selfish.”

_Touch from insensitivity –– the warmth radiating from him, the brush of his erection through his jeans as his hips rose between my thighs, the bursting of light along my beltline where his hands had come to rest._

A thumb lazily flicked open the button on my jeans and I sighed an inadequate, slurring consent in response.  

He raised an eyebrow.  “Ye’ve no complaints about my plan then?”

_Hearing from silence –– my breath a panting, desperate thing and the logs splitting and groaning in the fire, the shifting of his feet over the thick layers of duvet and blankets and pillows beneath us as he angled his body into mine._

The lowlands of my stomach, just above the heat between my legs, clenched as I shook my head in a slow, sloppy arc that felt as though it left a smeared cosmic trail in its wake. Jamie drew the duvet tighter over us, hands slipping down to my upper thighs and spreading them until I fell forward a bit.

 _Taste where before my palate had gone blank –– the flavor of the red wine that stained his lips, the faint tang of garlic at the back of my palate a reminder of the flat of his tongue pressing along mine_.

After tracing a single fingertip around the perimeter of his mouth, I put a thumbprint into his lower lip. “I want us to tease each other until we’re about to devolve into some sort of primal state.”

Colors radiated in my blood when he brought his hand between my legs and dragged his knuckles along the seam of my jeans. His voice was low when he asked, “And then what,  _mo chridhe_?”

_Scent from a neutral state –– the musk of his cologne and skin, the heavy tang of arousal (his and hers, a matching pair) that was strong enough on the air that it nearly devolved into a flavor._

“Then we’re just…  _sensations_.” I balanced myself with one hand on his shoulder and one on his chest as I ground down onto his hand.  Looking between us, he evened the plane of his palm between my thighs, held it steady, and mumbled an appreciative sound as I pressed against it.

“Och, aye… slippery skin, salty mouths, wee noises.” Finding myself physically incapable of engaging in our usual banter about  _wee noises_  with his fingers cupping me, I sighed a little. “I can feel how warm ye are through these jeans.  I’d imagine ye’re wet under there, too.”

The temperature of my blood spiked and goosebumps exploded under my sweatshirt.  Unable to look at him, I let my eyes close and concentrated on the tease that I had asked for.  His free hand lazily skated up the zipper of my jeans, leaving it in place, before exposing a narrow sliver of skin above the waistband of my jeans and tracing it with his thumb.

“All day while ye slept off yer hangover, I was thinkin’ about how I’d take ye tonight. The cockstand has been terrible.”

“You  _poor, poor_  thing.”

He removed his hand, but before I could protest, he drew me down by my waistband, squaring my hips and guiding himself to where I could feel said affliction through layers of denim. With the urging of his hands, I rocked against him, quickly bringing myself to the precipice of seeing stars and Jesus Christ himself.

Jamie’s voice was a teasing purr when he continued, “Oh aye.  _Verra_  puir. I kept peekin’ in to see if ye were awake. And ye were dead as a doornail. Snorin’.  Droolin’.”

“Excuse me.” In my head, I said it in the snarky way of someone who had taken great offense.  In reality, it was a gasped utterance as he maneuvered me against him again and again.  He lifted me, watched me catch my breath as he obviously fought to regulate his own.  After a moment, I mumbled out an attempt at banter. “Wasn’t hungover. Didn’t snore.  Admit to drool.  Woke up ready to fuck around with you on the patio.”

He unzipped my jeans as he said, “My apologies, Sassenach. How rude of me.  Ye’ve been verra ready for action in light of yer circumstances.”  

“Thanks,” I whispered, bringing a hand to his face.  His eyes were absolutely glittering.  I loved him always, full stop. But there was something special about him when he was like this.   _Excited for us.  Playful._   It was just  _sexy_.

His hand ran along the curve of my hip, waist, and outside of my ribcage.  I could see the deliberation in his eyes as he drew his lower lip between his teeth and assiduously avoided touching my breast. War broke out on the battlefield of my mind –– the competing desires to have him take me or to take him with no more prelude against the promise of a long, slow seduction that would leave me uselessly puddled against him ( _around him_ ) in the wake of the ultimate act.

I sighed when his hand traveled back down, slipping once again into the gaping waistband of my jeans.  When he drew me down onto him, I asked, “Are you just going to dry hump me until you come in your pants?”

“Ye want to make love on the patio?  _Really_?”  

I held his face then, just staring at him.  His mouth was slightly open and his eyes earnest.  Sometimes the depth of his surprise at my suggestions astounded me.  The quietness of his question.  

“I don’t see why not,” I said, fingers over his cheeks. His eyes went dark and liquid, fiercely searching my face.  My soldier had gone sober for a moment, considering the possibility.  “We are at our home.  We have a fence.  We are buried under blankets.  We want each other…”

Lifting my hips from his, I took the hemline of his sweater into a fist and bunched it up into a fist.  My other hand undid his jeans and took hold of him.  He hissed, teeth gnashing down into his lower lip with a level of violence that almost made me stop to ask if he had drawn blood.

He released the lip, color flooding into it as he pumped himself into my hand.  In a low whisper, I said, “These are capable hands, Mr. Fraser.”

After a moment, he took my other hand and brought it up his mouth.  I was almost undone by the dark, steady show of his eyes when he grazed my palm with his teeth before sucking two fingers deep into his mouth.  Carefully, he extracted the digits from between his lips and guided them down into the waistband of my jeans, beneath my knickers, and between my legs.  

“Tell me about yer capable hands, Sassenach.”

Falling forward, the next moments became a blur.

A series of graphic things shared –– my answer to his request, his explicit response ( _including the phrase “I want to fuck you” a rare utterance and made by one or both of us as a stand-in for a more delicate characterization of the act to come_ ), the shucking off of both of our jeans, the rolling through blankets until he was over me, the desperate rearranging of blankets so we did not catch ourselves rolling into the fire pit, the ultimate settling of the tip of him against me, tantalizingly close to fulfilling a graying promise.

With my breast in his hand, I slurred out something that he apparently recognized his name, answering with a husky, whispered, “ _Huh_?”

I bowed against him in answer and we were finally joined, the satisfaction of being full of him not even close to satisfying my need for a thousand sensations.  When he began to move, the slippery sound of our bodies together made me lose language entirely.  I clung to his back and wound my legs tighter around his waist as I clawed at him.

It was as if he knew that I needed to kiss him because his lips found mine, our mouths branding one another with a sloppy, panting connection.  His hands moved everywhere, their dance over my skin seeming like an ancient ritual.

_My hair.  My breasts.  My hips.  My buttocks._

I groaned only a handful of directives ( _harder, more, deeper, yes_ ), which he met with the kind of unflagging generosity that had characterized our relationship.

As I stiffened beneath him, my own keening noises lost to my ears, he clamped a hand over my lips with a smile.  “Ye’re going to––”

––my teeth sank into the soft flesh of his palm the base of his fingers, earning me a hiss as his hand held firmer––

“–– _ah,_ fuck––”

––while I usually found the word “grin” highly objectionable, I did beneath the hold he had on my mouth––

“––if he dinna shut up ye’ll wake the neighborhood when ye come, Claire.”

He was panting and I shook my head, suddenly not having any regard for our neighbors.  He drew the duvet over our heads, his hips somehow missing only a beat as he situated us beneath the covers and angled my hips  _just right_.  He drove into me twice more and I was falling –– pouring a gilt, completed moan into his mouth.  My quaking body sealed him to me ( _closer, tighter, pulsating_ ).  Undeterred, he did not stop and I sank my fingernails into the gnarled flesh on the back of his shoulder. The draining of every sensation but for the rippling, burning in my core continued as he finished, groaning and skewing his body to the side just enough as not to crush me as he fell forward.

For a long time we stayed melting into one another ( _the ice cream and its bowl_ ), sweaty under the duvet and breathing our own recycled air.  When our respiration rates had returned to normal, he guided my leg over his hip and stroked along the curve of my waist.  “I didna think ahead to patio sex.  I dinna have anything here to clean ye.  I’ll run inside and––”

Closing my eyes, I nestled myself closer to his chest, resting my lips at his collarbone.  I was still suspended somewhere in the universe a million light years outside of my own body –– stupid and come drunk, a little emotionally sloppy and needy for an uninterrupted series of moments with just the two of us.  “In a few minutes.”

After a time ( _an indulgent series of minutes where he touched me with an unspeakable tenderness, mumbled half-laughing endearments as I mumbled nonsense in return, and wished me a happy birthday and said he loved me over and over)_ , he lifted me and carried me inside.  Naked from the waist down and shuffling into the house with my legs wrapped about his waist, we must have looked like the strangest of two-legged, two-headed creatures in existence.

“I can walk,” I protested a bit blandly, unwinding my legs from him once we were the kitchen.  He readjusted his grip on me, but did not let me down, though my feet hovered only inches above the floor.

“I’d like to think ye canna walk, though I ken ye can walk just fine.”

I grunted a noise of discontent, my mind clearing now that we had unsealed ourselves from the makeshift sauna created by our bodies beneath the duvet.  “Bloody man.”

“Bloody woman,” he retorted, holding open the back door and imploring the dog to shake a leg.  I sank my teeth into his earlobe and he finally set me down.  

“And yet, here you are.  Married to me.”

He snorted.

Buffalo Bill finally came ambling up the back stairs into the house, walked between us and collapsed with a dramatic sigh in front of the

“Do ye ken how ridiculous ye look right now, Sassenach? Standin’ there in yer wee sweater, no pants.  Yer hair all fucked up and a hicky on yer neck.”

By reflex, I reached for my throat, testing the flesh as if I would be able to feel said mark. “You didn’t.”

From the sparkle in his eyes I knew that he  _most certainly had_.  

“As if you look much better, Mr. Fraser, standing there with no pants, all of your bits hanging out.”  He lunged for me, grabbing and laughing.  Wanting to be caught, I ended up in his arms easily and he lifted me bodily, hoisting me unceremoniously over his shoulder.  

After an hour of handsy teasing ( _pinching soft parts, squeaking insincere protests, a retaliatory hicky on his throat_ ), we made love again in our bed.  

We fell asleep wound around one another, sticky and talking about everything and nothing at all.  

_The rugby team he followed and whether their new star recruited from New Zealand would be good.  What movie we would see at the cinema over the weekend.  Whether we should take an anniversary trip the following spring.  His upcoming business trip to California that would wedge between us a distance that were both dreading.  The surgeries I had on my schedule for the rest of the week.  Names that we had always liked with only the thinnest of pretenses of what we were_ **_really_ ** _talking about.  How neither of us liked the film adaptations of The Hobbit, which he boldly declared to be his third favorite book of all time (insisting that Harry Potter books one through seven were truly_ **_one_ ** _book)._

The following morning ( _a grey, rainy Tuesday_ ), neither of us were able to identify which of us fell asleep first.

I mused that the patio was probably a disaster –– our leftover food, blankets, and clothing strewn about the cobblestones.  

We prepared for work in tandem.  Jamie loaded my toothbrush with toothpaste before his own, declaring that he didn’t care.  I poured small cups of mouthwash and pre-measured lengths of floss for each of us.  

“How does it feel to be another year older?” he asked, a tail of floss dangling from each hand.

I shrugged noncommittally, having truly given the passing of October 20 a second thought. “A lot like I felt yesterday.”

Beneath his smile, he hummed an appreciative noise.  

I reached for the mirrored medicine cabinet over the sink and withdrew a new blister pack of birth control.  His fingers were suddenly on my wrist, an easily breakable circle like a vow around my wrist.  “Don’t.”

My breath caught as I looked down, immediately knowing his intention.

“I mean, if ye’re ready…  _don’t_.”

My mouth went dry and I inhaled.  I looked down at the small foil packet. “I’m…” For once, my fingers were not trembling at the prospect of it.  Of a _baby._ Of making love with absolutely no barrier between us –– a hormonal barricade, a device in my uterus, a sheath of manmade material, an emotional wall.  A steadiness that would have been at home in an operating theatre had calmed my fingers.  Any nerves that I’d had about the prospect of getting pregnant had faded somehow, almost without me realizing it until he had said something.

“I dinna want to pressure––”

I felt the hairs at the nape of my neck come to attention, the back of my tongue go dry.  “No. I mean, yes… I’m ready. I mean that… you’re not… you aren’t  _pressuring_  me.  You never have.  And I want to.  To try.”

The quiet, hopeful “ _really?_ ” that came from him gave me the chills.  

Dropping the packet into the small wastebasket along with our used floss, Q-tips, and tissues, I nodded.  

“Claire…”  

There were things that he wanted to say.  I could tell from the tone of his voice, the way his eyes slanted as he narrowed them, the turn of his mouth from a half-smile to a line and back again, how his hand twitched against his thigh. I knew that I would never get any of it out of him before work. 

“Come here,” I said, though I stepped towards him, taking his necktie between my fingers.  I rose onto my tiptoes as I tightened my grip on his tie and brought him to meet me halfway.  After tasting the mint on his lips and tongue, I whispered, “I love you.  Have a good day at work.”

Carefully, I straightened his necktie until it was back to rights.

_We were going to try._


End file.
